How do I enable grading periods in my course?

From the homepage, select the Editor icon on the course that needs grading periods enabled.

Click the Tools icon located in the top toolbar, and select Course settings

 To configure grading periods:

1. In the course settings, locate the School Year and select the current school year.
2. Scroll down and locate the Grading Periods panel.
3. Check the Use grading periods option. The system will display the first grading period labeled "Period 1".  Click on the grading period label to edit.
4. In the resulting edit panel, select the grading period from the drop down menu*.  If "weighting" has been turned on in the school's domain settings, an additional "Weight" field will be displayed. Click "Done" to close the edit panel.
5. To add a second grading period, click the Add grading period link.
6. Click Save

^* NOTE:  If grading periods have not been configured in the school domains settings, users can manually enter custom grading period labels.  Conversely, if grading periods are configured in the domain but a unique set is desired for the course, deselect the "school year" option in the course settings. Warning: grades for courses with custom grading periods will not be visible in the School Browser tool.

Special Note For Weighted Year-Long Courses:  For year-long courses that want to use weighting, users must choose to either separate semesters into separate Echo courses -or- weight the currently unused grading periods "0". For example, during semester one, first quarter, second quarter and final exam might be weighted as 40%, 40%, 20% respectively, while the other three grading periods would be set to 0% so that they are not included in the semester grade.  At the end of the semester, teachers would need to manually change the weighting for the second semester so that the first three grading periods are weighted as 0% and the last three are weighted as desired.

From the homepage, select the Editor icon on the course that needs activities assigned to a grading period.

1. By default, the course editor will default to the current grading period (set by the Echo Admin). The current grading period is denoted by the name in the top right hand corner.

2. Find the activity that needs a grading period assigned. Click the Edit button (pencil icon) on that activity.

In the Activity editor, click the Settings tab.

By default, the activity will be set to the current grading period.

If the activity is set to gradable, then make sure the grading category in the Gradebook and Submission section is set to the correct grading period.

From the homepage, click on the Editor icon located on the course that needs the gradebook filter to view grades.

Click the Menu icon on the left hand side of the top tool bar.  

Click on Gradebook in the main menu.

By default, the gradebook display is filtered by the current grading period.

Click on the name of the grading period to view a dropdown menu to choose a different grading period view.

Tips:

• We don’t recommend using grading periods if there is significant enrollment changes between grading periods. In this case, it’s better to create a new course and re-enroll students for a fresh start. This is also true if there is a different course code for each semester.

Additional resource: Ensuring Activities Are Displayed in the Correct Grading Period

Echo is constantly being improved based on the feedback from users and we strive to keep our documentation up to date.  If this document doesn’t match what you are seeing in Echo, please let us know.